ON WEEDS IN GENERAL. 



From the day that man with a crooked stick first tickled the 

 ground about the roots of some favorite plant which he desired to 

 grow more rapidly, and pulled from around it other plants that it 

 might, have a better supply of air, moisture and sunshine — from 

 that day weeds have existed upon the face of earth. Before that 

 day each and even' plant was on an equality, fighting its own 

 battles in its own way, spreading far and wide by rootstocks and 

 seed its kind, evolving year by year some property, some character 

 which would the better enable it to succeed in the great struggle 

 for existence. But when man for the first time began to domesti- 

 cate certain plants — to help them fight the battle of life — to set 

 off certain areas in which he wished them alone to grow — all 

 plants which were in any way harmful to his plans he called 

 "weeds." From that day to this he has had to fight them, and 

 from as far back as the time of Juno^-according to old Homer — 

 whenever he begins to get the better of them 



"Old Earth perceives and from her bosom pours 

 Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers." 



Many of the plants which that first gardener called weeds pos- 

 sessed hidden virtues, properties of excellence, which other men, 

 far down the vista of the years, discovered. These plants they 

 began to cultivate, to utilize, and so removed them from the cate- 

 gory of weeds. Meanwhile some of the first of cultivated plants, 

 when carried to other parts of the earth, have either lost those 

 properties which rendered them useful to man or have, through 

 a change of soil and other environment, become so successful, so 

 aggressive, that they spread and intrude upon the areas set aside 

 for other plants favored by man, and have become the most com- 

 mon of weeds. So the list of weeds is ever changing, some being 

 .added here, others subtracted there, imtil it is different in every 

 country, state or nation on earth and is nowhere settled or stable. 



(5) 



